'You're a what?' an Italian wine producer asked a friend of mine on a press trip a few years ago. 'Do you like men?' She'd just explained that, as a vegetarian, she wasn't that keen on eating the pile of Parma ham on the plate in front of her. There may well be a few vegetarians in Italy, but if the wine producer's reaction was anything to go by, they wouldn't exactly fill St Mark's Square.

Vegetarians are virtual pariahs in some countries - I reckon they'd go hungry in parts of steak-obsessed Argentina - so maybe they should increase their wine consumption to compensate. The good news is that the majority of reds, whites, rosés and fortified wines are suitable for vegetarians because the makers do not use animal products to clarify, soften or stabilise them.

'Animal products? In wine?' some of you may be spluttering into your muesli. That's correct. The very mention of some of these so-called fining agents, such as gelatine (made from unspecified animal tissues), chitosan (derived from the shells of crustaceans and shellfish) and isinglass (made from fish bladders) would be enough to make a vegetarian or vegan call for a (recycled paper) sick bag. But once upon a time, winemakers used animal blood, so at least things have moved on a bit.

The majority of wines are fined with bentonite (a clay) or milk or egg-derived products such as casein or albumen. These are all vegetarian-friendly products. There are no figures available, but I reckon that around 80 per cent of all wines are suitable for vegetarians. Even those that use animal products do not contain trace elements of substances like isinglass or gelatine, but it's the principle that counts.

So how do you know if you're drinking a vegetarian wine? After all, producers are not obliged to declare which fining agents they use. Some supermarkets, such as Tesco, Waitrose and Marks & Spencer, use the Vegetarian Society's logo on their labels, but most retailers leave you to guess. It took me a surprising amount of time to find out if the 12 wines I've selected this month were suitable. 'Er ...I think it would taste OK with tofu,' was the response of one retailer.

If you take these things seriously (and the vegetarians I know do), then your best bet is to buy wines from a specialist merchant, such as Vintage Roots (0800 980 4992; www.vintageroots.co.uk), Vinceremos (0113 2440002; www.vinceremos.co.uk) or Smithfield Wine (0161 273 6070; www.smithfieldwine.com), who will be able to advise you on vegan as well as vegetarian choices.

'Ninety-five per cent of our range is vegetarian,' says Neil Palmer of Vintage Roots, 'and 80 per cent is vegan.' By the way, it's worth remembering that organic wines are not necessarily vegetarian.

Your other solution is buy something labelled as 'unfined and unfiltered'. This is an increasingly popular wine style (did someone mention the word 'marketing'?) in the United States where some people argue that the less you do to a wine the better it will taste. There's a downside to this, however. The wine is guaranteed to be vegetarian friendly, but it might also develop 'horsey' off-flavours in bottle, especially if it's low in acidity and high in alcohol.

Which wines work best with vegetarian food? I'd avoid tannic reds if I were you and stick to lighter reds, whites and rosés. Artichokes and spinach are both difficult to partner with wine, as they make it taste tinny and metallic, but anything else goes. Maybe someone should have a word with that Italian ...

Red

2006 Finca Las Higueras Pinot Gris, Mendoza (£5.29, Waitrose)

If you're as disappointed by watery Italian Pinot Grigios as I am, then try this rich, peachy, fragrant white from high-altitude Argentina. Lots of flavour for the money.

2006 Oxford Landing Viognier, South Australia (£5.99, Co-op)

Yalumba is the New World's leading Viognier specialist, producing a series of excellent wines at different prices.

2005 Tesco Chablis, Cave de Chablis (£6.20, Tesco)

Made by the excellent Chablis co-operative, this is a textbook example of Burgundy's most northerly white wine.